Julia, wow! Kudos on your food log from yesterday. You really do eat healthful foods! Way to go! And congrats to Lou on getting his first paper published. No, cataracts and glaucoma are not similar. A cataract is the lens of the eye becoming opaque. There is surgery to remove the clouded lens and vision can be restored through a lens transplant or new glasses. Glaucoma is excess fluid pressure on the optic nerve which causes irresible nerve damage, and when that happens the patient is left with blind spots. No cure, no way to restore that lost eyesight, but eye drops to release excess fluid can hold at bay further nerve damage. If left untreated, like in the case of my mother, it leads to total blindness. But mine is stabilized and I'm very faithful about using my eyedrops. I'm fine for walking as long as I survey the floor or path before I walk. "Look before you leap" is a good rule to follow. LOL Thanks for your encouragement on my walking. Yeah, my husband told me the Y has stationery bikes that have screens where you take a virtual ride through scenery as you pedal. Sounds like fun to me. Plus there's always room for more in my circle of friends.

Mike, I sat here giggling like an idiot reading your post to yourself about your carbs and Pylo. LOL Your Mom sounds a lot like my sister who died of cancer in 2005--very outspoken, but full of love and had great sense of humor. The world doesn't seem right with my sister gone but I believe that one day we'll all meet again and we'll have a grand time celebrating. Hey, your birthday IS fast approaching. We'll have to have a cyber-party. Mother's Day baby--that's as cute as being born on "Labor Day." Oh, my Walmart does carry the Naturally More peanut butter and I bought a jar. They didn't have the organic or almond-just the regular, but it's really delicious! DH likes it, too. Thanks for the tip. Aw, I just read your last post. So sorry you're bummed out. Yeah, sometimes journaling helps and sometimes it just makes us concentrate on the negative. Your idea to go outside and do something productive was a great one. Wishing you an easing of your financial burden and coping well with ups and downs along the way. Oh, wow, your day sure sucked big time, even after the nice phone call from your BIL. I hope you are able to work out some of your frustration at the gym today and that your Sunday will be a whole lot better than today. Big cyber-hug to ya!

Terri! Good grief, you surely do have a perilous job! Clothes on fire--that would scare the bejeebies out of me! So glad you made it through all your injuries ok! My son is a welder and often gets burns. Right now he's nursing a huge flash burn several inches in width across his entire stomach--took off his protective apron because it got in his way. The encouragement from you and all the other members of this group really do keep me going on my exercise. And I so appreciate that. I'm only pretty good on my food because of being pre-diabetic and don't want to wind up on meds like my little sis and bro who have progressed from pre-diabetes to full blown type II. Neither is willing to restrict carbs. But it's their choice and I have to respect their right to choose.

Muna, I understand where you're coming from on the nuts since you explained. I can have real cream on my diet, but I dare not buy it because I can't be trusted with it. I'd drink the entire carton or bottle straight down. So I use powdered non-dairy creamer in my coffee and only use cream in restaurants. Oh, so sorry to hear you're not feeling well! Wishing you a speedy recovery!

thanks Mern. I'm sorry for being a big grumpy pain in the ass. I won't be posting my journal for today, trust me it's for the best . I haven't been motivational today, I just can't seem to shake this funk that I'm in. Anyway, enough of that. No problem on the peanut butter tip. Not sure if you noticed but don't worry about the chunks up top, I think that's flax seed. It really is great PB and the thing I can't figure out is I've actually ground my own fresh before from peanuts and the nutrition on the NM was better than the fresh. Less sugar, less cals, don't remember what else.

I'm about to head to the gym. I'm not really feeling it today and I need to go with a clear head or else I'll end up injuring myself.

As for my diet update, this morning I was still at 168.8#. I haven't eaten much so my energy is a little low but I'm not craving carbs. I'm almost nervous to have a cheat day but I know in the long run it'll do me some good.

Mike, so sorry to hear your lawn mower is broken...that totally sucks and would put me in an annoyed mood too...esp if I was already upset about something. i know it's hard, but keeping things in perspective sometimes helps me too, a broken lawn mower is not such a bad problem compared to lots of other things that could have happened.

My parents have a neighbor who still uses the kind with out a motor!! Maybe that is more fail-proof. heh. i live in an apt, and I love not having any responsibility for taking care of home/garden/shoveling...but of course there are obvious downsides to renting too.

if i journal when I'm feeling down I try to journal so that I can come up with a plan, and write out ways I can work on the problem or get help from someone else to help me with it. i'm a bit of an anxiety driven person and journal-ling can sometimes be therapeutic.

Mern, thank you for explaining the difference between glaucoma and cataracts. I'm glad you nipped it in the bud and are doing everything you can to prevent anything further from happening to your eyes. You seem like a really amazing person.

I'm doing better on my food log today, and I'll prob end the day with around 1350-1400 cals. Lots of veggies are in there, but also a slice and a half of pizza, which was cold and delicious. I have a bad habit of eating his leftovers. I took a 3.4 mile walk, going super slow today as flash cards were in my hand.

I'm editing to say that I actually ate 1800 cals today....pretzels, apple, thin mint, and random bites...this is two days of eating cals equivalent or over what I burn...

I think I may be busy tomorrow so I'm not sure if I'll be able to post this. If anything changes with anything here I'll edit this post. When the 7 days are up I'll post up any weekly graphs or charts, such as pie chart of macros, calories consumed vs. burn or whatever y'all would like to see (just let me know).

Well I said I'd give an update on how the week went for me doing low carb, high fat, high protein.

Some things that I gave up:
1) junk food (ie: chips, candy, ice cream, yogurt, not even plain animal crackers, no crackers period, you name it) I didn't even have a small taste.
2) I had zero bread for the week. Not even a single slice of 40 cal bread. None, nada, zilch
3) I had NO MILK, not even a drop. I allowed myself 2 servings of fruit or milk in any combination per day, I eliminated the milk so I could have fruit. I think everyday except for today I had my 2 servings of fruit.
4) No cereal, or oatmeal. NONE! This made breakfast difficult for me b/c I hate eggs, so I was sort of limited.
5) No beans (besides green beans)
6) No starches such as potatoes (not even sweet potatoes), rice, pasta. Nothing, not even a small sample
7) No peanut butter, and not even my sugar free preserves, so I couldn't even make a bread-less PB&J
8) I'm sure there's more that I just can't think of.

What I added:
1) Fat, b/c many low fat items have added sugar to compensate for the loss of flavor that fat gives (ie: full fat ranch dressing, butter [but not a lot], cheese [more than I could ever want b/c I'm not a BIG cheese eater], 2 servings of nuts per day [usually almonds, on occasion cashews])
2) sodium (from the nuts)
3) I didn't eat fish at all (I could have, just didn't) so I made sure to take a 1400mg fish oil pill DAILY

What did I eat?
Well you've read a lot of it already, but I tried to get a protein and fat with every meal or snack. I had a lot of grilled chicken (usually skinless even though I could have had it with skin), grilled steak, and a couple burgers cooked on a George Foreman Grill, and tonight I had boneless pork chops also cooked on the GFG.

I ate a lot of salads with chicken breasts. My veggie during this was broccoli (steamed from frozen with NO FAT ADDED), green beans (steamed from frozen with NO FAT ADDED), Cauliflower (steamed from FRESH with NO FAT ADDED), or raw with FF Ranch Dressing.

I never ate out one time.

My Thoughts:

Was it hard for me? The first few days were VERY difficult. I questioned myself many times during that time. For the most part it was hard but not unbearable. But it worked, and most things that work are difficult, I guess that's why they "work", b/c you HAVE TO "WORK" at it!

Weight: For ME it worked. I broke my plateau and the weight fell off! BUT I was more strict, I didn't cheat even a tiny bit. I was also more calorie deficient that I normally am, probably b/c I wasn't eating the high cal high carb items that I usually eat. My GF did this and didn't lose an ounce, but her change in diet wasn't as drastic as mine b/c she doesn't normally eat the amount of carbs that I do daily. Her biggest change was cutting out crackers and stuff like that. She lost a ton of weight when she did hCG a while back and I honestly don't think she can afford to lose more.

Energy: For the most part it was good. I had a hard time getting through a some workouts with the intensity I usually bring.

Cravings: The first 2-3 days I had some pretty bad carb cravings (I almost gave in but when I read Cassie's post to me, I stayed on the straight and narrow, Thanks Cassie , and everyone), that subsided after the first few days.

Hunger: Wasn't bad considering that I was more deficient than I normally am. I have ADD and I did finally take my adderall as prescribed (I usually take it less often) and a side effect of it is loss of appetite. So that probably played a part in it.

Sleep: I rarely get the recommended 8 hrs of sleep per day and that stayed the same. I don't think diet played any role.

Mood: for the most part it was good, although today I had a melt down.

Last but not least, a touchy subject. Please don't quote this b/c it will show up! If you don't want to read it, don't worry (I'll type it in white), if you do just drag your mouse over it and highlight it.

BM's:I usually go A LOT, being "clogged" has never been an issue for me. This did decrease quite a bit. I was never "clogged" but probably had only 1 BM/day for most days (I may have went a day w/o one) which is probably "normal" for some, not me. I believe this was not only from eating so much cheese, but I was worried about TOTAL not NET carbs, so my fiber intake was much lower than normal. Besides the quantity I noticed that it was lighter in color. So if you are prone to getting "clogged" this probably isn't for you!

Non Health & Fitness
10) 4 random acts of kindness no, no, no, no, no, no
11) makes 50 calls to prospects too many of them were on the DNC list (sent emails instead), no (took off), Gov. issued a state of emergency so legally I can not make outbound calls to prospects. between calls and emails = 63 (still have 1 more day)
12) to push/ encourage the next person to post here to meet their goals MunaAmin:not yet, no, no (I didn't have the heart to push), nope, no, nope.

Mike, you are not a "big grumpy pain in the ass." You are certainly entitled to vent as the rest of us do. I wish I knew the right words to say to help bring you out of your funk but all I can do, not knowing you personally, is to lend an ear and let you know I care. My heart certainly went out to you after reading your Saturday post #200. I remember days where everything I touched or dealt with turned to sh*t. (Pardon my "French.") Julia's advice "if i journal when I'm feeling down I try to journal so that I can come up with a plan, and write out ways I can work on the problem or get help from someone else to help me with it." sounds really wise to me!

You did a MAGNIFICIENT job on your food goals this past week! Kudos to you on that!

I read with a lot of interest your experience with low carb. You ate very much the way I do. I realize yours was only four days, but I eat a huge variety of low carb veggies. And I do have to avoid the low fat dressings and dairy because of the added carbs. I usually sleep less than 5 hours per night, but the better I am at watching my carbs, the better I sleep. But it took longer than four days for my low carb diet to have any effect on my sleep. BM's--LOL I was interested because I'm a mom, grandma, and low-carber. The lighter color may have been from the additional fat. I was curious during the four days about your being concerned with the total carbs and not the fiber. I deduct my fiber because it's a carb that doesn't impact blood sugar, plus it does help keep one regular. But my low carb diet is for life, so I make sure I get plenty of fiber from my flaxmeal, textured soy veggie protein, whole grain low carb tortillas, low carb whole grain bread, Dreamfields low net effective carb pasta, and my protein shake powder. So I agree with your thought that getting clogged on low carb was probably due to your eating too much cheese and not enough fiber-- I don't think low carb itself was the problem. Did I understand correctly that your intent was to use low carb for plateau busting? And I saw you did break your plateau. I totally agree that low carb is not for everyone. Some people process carbs just fine and are a healthy weight or can lose weight quite nicely with low fat, high protein, lots of exercise. Whatever works and is healthful is just fine.

Just as a point of interest--I'm very sodium sensitive (a normal amount for most people causes my hands and feet to ache from swelling) so I learned to eat unsalted nuts. DH has high blood pressure and learned to eat nuts unsalted, too. Actually once we got used to that, we realized we could enjoy the taste of the nuts more. If I'm wanting something sweet in addition to my two pieces of sugar free candy per day, I often eat unsalted nuts, unsalted melon, or unsalted tomatoes. I disagree with foodies who say salt brings out the flavor of all food. I find it ridiculous to add salt and pepper to tossed salads (not to the salad dressing, but to the greens) and sandwiches like they do on TV cooking shows--don't understand why everything has to taste salted. But I do use salt in my low carb pasta water, otherwise the pasta has no flavor at all. For many other things I use either no salt at all, lemon juice, or salt substitute.

The little crunchy chunks atop the NM peanut butter are really yummy, giving the product a nice texture, like chunky peanut butter, only better. They certainly are nutty tasting and shaped like teeny seeds, but flaxseed have to be ground to be digested and I wonder if it's possible to grind them into that shape. Well they have to be either peanuts, flaxseed, or wheat germ, but in the end I don't really care what they are--I just stir them in. LOL I guess it's more nutritious than homemade pb because of the wheat germ, flaxseed, and egg whites. The added sugar and honey has to be a really teeny amount because the new nutrition label says 3g sugar per 2 tablespoons serving and that would include the natural sugars in the peanuts and the wheat germ. My flaxmeal label shows zero sugar grams. Just for kicks and self-assurance for managing my blood sugar, I weighed 3g cane sugar on my very accurate food scale. 3g = 5/8 teaspoon so the amount of ADDED sugar and honey has to be really, really slight. I'm looking forward to breakfast Sunday morning: I still love my flaxmeal and I read that one can't really OD on Omega-3, so I'm going to have a flaxmeal pancake spread with NM peanut butter.

JULIA, excellent advice to Mike! "if i journal when I'm feeling down I try to journal so that I can come up with a plan, and write out ways I can work on the problem or get help from someone else to help me with it." I got a chuckle out of your sweet post. I'm not amazing at all--just "experienced" and learned from past mistakes (and believe me, I've made more than my share) to try to go with the flow and be as pro-active as I can muster up the courage to be. I'm not a nutritionist, but I'd guess from the amount of really nutritious food you ate over the past couple days, that the good stuff far outweighs the pizza and thin mint. Controlling your overage is important.

Here's a really fun "fact" from Dr. Mike Moreno, M.D. (in the Woman's World 3/21/11 issue) about pro-biotic rich food-including yogurt and specially fortified dairy products. Probiotics help increase levels of good bacteria in our bodies. "Research suggests that if we have the right bacteria in our digestive tracts, we extract fewer calories from food." Friendship, Cabot, Horizon or Darigold brands of Greek yogurt and organic cottage cheese are fortified with probiotics--look for that on the label. I haven't looked for those yet in the store. Dr. Mike also mentions that protein is a nutrient that helps speed up our metabolism, but I'm sure all of us here already knew that.

In case anyone wonders: unlike the rest of you, I post just my daily achievements because I have to force myself to take just one day at a time. Also, it's a mind trick: I have one shot to get it right--otherwise I'd make too many excuses like "well, four days out of seven is good, right?" Plus if I do screw up, I can more easily put it behind me and move on.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I just read your and wanted to comment on the salt. My diet is normally very low sodium as I was salt substitute and eat unsalted nuts (which makes me wonder if that's why my BP never gets to 120/80, it's usually ~ 118/72). I got the salted nuts this time b/c the book about the diet said that if you aren't getting the results you desire to make sure you're getting in enough sodium and water. I bought the salted one to ensure that I was getting in enough sodium. I don't put salt on any other food though. Mrs. Dash helps as well as Morton's salt substitute.